Review – Thor: Ragnarok

In Marvel Studios’ “Thor: Ragnarok,” Thor is imprisoned on the other side of the universe without his mighty hammer and finds himself in a race against time to get back to Asgard to stop Ragnarok—the destruction of his homeworld and the end of Asgardian civilization—at the hands of an all-powerful new threat, the ruthless Hela. But first he must survive a deadly gladiatorial contest that pits him against his former ally and fellow Avenger—the Incredible Hulk!
“Thor: Ragnarok” is directed by Taika Waititi and returns Chris Hemsworth starring as Thor and Tom Hiddleston reprising his role as Loki. They are joined by Cate Blanchett, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Tessa Thompson and Karl Urban, with Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Hopkins.

What We Thought:

Thor: Ragnarok is advertised as the best reviewed Marvel movie of all time. With films like The Avengers, Iron-Man, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Guardians of the Galaxy and Doctor Strange, that’s quite a statement. That must mean the movie is ridiculously great right? Well no. Not at all.

Let me clarify that, if you don’t know anything about Thor and didn’t like the first two Thor movies, you might like this. You might like this a lot. If, like me, you like the Thor character both in the movies and in the comics and again, like me, enjoy Norse mythology, this movie isn’t good. At all.

The problem with critics is, just like with Wonder Woman, the early reviews were positive and everyone else felt the need to love the movie. Just like Wonder Woman, they only see what they want and avoid the obvious flaws in the movie. I don’t like Ragnarok for obvious and not so obvious reasons.

The biggest issue is Cate Blanchett. I usually like her, but she’s unwatchable as Hela. There was no need for an award-winning actress to play a one-dimensional, overly CGI’d character. Her fight sequences were bad and they should have just used her stunt double Zoe Bell as the actual actress. Hela says some ridiculous dialogue and Blanchett feels so out-of-place which is weird because Marvel is full of award-winning actors like Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Hopkins and coming soon, Brie Larson.

Sticking with Hela, I have a lot of personal issues with the character. This stuff might not bother you, but as a Thor fan, it irks the bejesus out of me. I liked the opening of Ragnarok. Thor finds himself chained up and is telling the audience what is happening. He fights a fire character with his hammer Mjolnir. Mjolnir can only be lifted by those who are worthy and was made for Thor. Thor throws Mjolnir at the fire character and it pins its head to the ground because the character isn’t worthy of lifting it. If you’ve seen the trailer for the movie, you see Hela catch Mjolnir and crush it. She’s clearly not worthy and the hammer would have destroyed her. In the movie it explains she is Thor’s sister who was born way before him. She and Odin went around doing battle together and there’s a painting of Hela HOLDING Mjolnir. Mjolnir was made FOR Thor. If he wasn’t born, how does it exist? Ugh.

The Planet Hulk storyline was pointless too. I understand Marvel’s hesitation to do a standalone Hulk film after the first two disappointed, but you shouldn’t have shoehorned in a Planet Hulk story into a Thor film. The only purpose Hulk really has in the film is to fight a giant wolf at the end. The entire movie just feels like filler, here’s a bunch of stories to fill in the gaps of previous and future films. Hulk and Thor weren’t in Captain America: Civil War and this shows you where they were and gets them back into the MCU for Avengers: Infinity War. Part of the movie feels like it wants to be a buddy road trip movie with Thor and Hulk and I would have loved that. Part of the movie feels like it wants to be a buddy road trip movie with Thor and Loki and I would have loved that. Part of the movie feels like Planet Hulk. Then it remembers Ragnarok is happening and cuts to bad scenes with Hela and eventually Thor, Loki, Hulk and Valkyrie fighting to save Asgard. It’s a mess of a movie.

I wanted to love Thor: Ragnarok. I thought the trailers were great and I had super high expectations for it. Thor is one of my favorite characters and I thought the movie was going to be super fun. I expected a bunch of cameos to connect films, not a bunch of useless characters and storylines. Benedict Cumberbatch cameos as Doctor Strange and was useless. Literally ANY character, even a made up one, could have served the same purpose. Jeff Goldblum pretty much plays himself and if you’ve seen the trailers, you get all his good stuff. It has some positives. Some of the action scenes are great and Hemsworth does look like a Norse god. Blanchett shouldn’t have been Hela because her fight scenes are trash. They finally got the rights to use Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song which is about Thor and Norse mythology so that was good. It also fixes one wrong from the first Thor film. In that film it shows the Infinity Gauntlet in Odin’s treasure room. Hela walks through it and knocks it over calling it a fake because fanboys have been killing that scene since the original came out. I was honestly so disappointed in Thor: Ragnarok I considered walking out at one point. I wanted to love it and didn’t like it at all. Odin help me when I see Justice League.